Mirror, Mirror
by Suffering Angel
Summary: Because sometimes broken mirrors reflect what's really there, even when it's of the opposite colors. Ichigo ANGST. Episode 59 SPOILERS! you were warned.


I don't own Bleach.

_**Mirror, Mirror…**_

He stared at it. Longley, intently, and with just a touch of fear.

He didn't like staring at it; he didn't like thinking about it; he didn't like… _it_.

It. The white facial mask with the blood red stripes, accented teeth and holes for eyes… that, of course, was when the thing wasn't blinding his eyes to reality.

His mask… his hollow mask.

Yes, he knew what it was. Kind of hard not to when that side of his soul took over and the only way to make it go away was rip off the half of his face his partially formed hollow mask covered.

It materialized again. He got into a fight, into trouble, lost it, and it materialized. Good thing, too, otherwise…

Wait, good? Had he just thought that was good? He shook his head violently as he picked up the mask, trailing a finger across blood red stripes – three on the top left, two on his left cheek.

He suppressed the feelings to fingertips running down his own face before studying the crack that resulted from the blow he received. Nothing serious, if you judged by that… but then again…

His grip over the white object tightened. It saved him before from worse hits. Who knew exactly _what_ the thing was made of…

His soul, a part of him suddenly commented as though absently yet superiorly. It was a part of his soul… and he desperately tried to deny both that fact… and the feeling he got whenever he stared at it.

It was less and less like looking at a mask… and much… much more like staring into a mirror.

But that wasn't him, he shouted inwardly. There was no way that was him!

But… if that wasn't him… yet it was a mirror… could the mirror… the image reflected back at him… be…

Broken?

–

The eyes he momentarily closed snapped open at the sound of glass breaking. Cracking… shards falling to the floor and breaking even more. It was all around him, wherever he looked.

Mirrors.

Cracked, shattered, broken mirrors. No matter where he turned to, no matter what direction he faced. Each step he took brought the sound of more shards breaking to his ears as he stepped at the small glass pieces which were scattered everywhere.

His brows furrowed beyond their almost-natural state as he looked down. His eyes darted from mirror to mirror to broken mirror, the feeling of panic rapidly taking more and more of his heart.

That was him reflecting back, alright…

In white.

"This sure is rare…" His own voice echoed at him, bouncing off of some mirrors, further breaking others. He looked at the direction the voice came from – hardly his own mouth, yet no one else's. True enough, there he was, a dim, faded image in the only mirror that – despite being thoroughly cracked – was still standing. His reflection, however, seemed not to be completely his own as many shards reflected white without consideration to his actual colors.

White, and a bit of black, and two single points of yellow, one of which was staring mockingly at him from its own mirror piece.

"… You coming here on your own like this. What's the matter? Got bored out there?" Teasing, almost childish laughter filled the space, radiating as though from every single reflective piece showing black lips and black and yellow eyes.

His silence, however, seemed to hardly even come from where he was standing.

"Who are you?" He finally asked, and the silence that fell almost immediately put him on edge.

"Who am I?" His own voice asked incredulously. "You want to tell me you came all the way over here just to ask me that?" He half stared at him. He was serious; they both were. "What a boring guy." His other self concluded for himself and he felt all yellow eyes leave him as the other averted his gaze, having apparently lost interest.

"So… what if I did?" He asked, managing to keep his voice under control with an effort. Black eyes once again turned to him with a penetrating look that made him gulp.

"Don't you think… you're better off asking _what_ I am?"

"Don't know, does it really matter?" He surprised even himself at the quick response and was rewarded with a remotely innocently amused laughter – as much as such a thing could come from the hollow side of his soul.

When he finished being amused, the white one turned to look at the other with narrowed eyes and a crooked smirk.

"Beats me. I don't have a name after all… so I guess it's really up to you."

The statement echoed in the empty space, broken only when it made another mirror shatter and fall to the floor. The hollow smiled as his Shinigami counterpart chose the exact moment of farther shattering to voice his next question; if reflected in every mirror that showed his black lips.

"Then… are you me?"

The sure yet insecure tone he let out exactly as the shards scattered made the other chuckle.

"Maybe. Or maybe it's the other way around?"

He shrugged carelessly, only to be answered with an exact same shrug as his Shinigami counterpart repeated his demi-taunting question.

"Does it really matter?"

They locked eyes for a moment with almost matching cocky smiles, but as the next mirror piece hit the floor it was the orange haired one that looked away first, making the hollow smile even more as he answered

"Maybe. Depends. How badly do you want to know?"

He could only continue looking away and bite his lip. The hollow licked his own.

"You're scared, aren't you?" He asked coldly, making the Shinigami stare at him with wide eyes. "So, so scared…" He giggled. It was the most disturbing giggle he had ever heard, and seemed to only intensify as in one single moment the mirror he was reflected at as though came together. No more cracks, no more shattered reflections…

No more black.

Just one full body reflection of him in white.

"Don't be mad, though…"

It he wasn't so busy staring, he might've noticed it –

"… mad?"

The mirrors that broke, all of them, silently, and the millions of millions of glittering shards simply floating, frozen in the air.

"Yeah. Because it's not my fault." He finished in a tone much like that of a child's having just committed a naughty deed for which he felt no regret.

"Then…" The Shinigami began, trying to see beyond the cloud of broken glass pieces that made it hard enough to see even without them reflecting the light back at him – a light from where, he knew not.

"… then whose fault is it!" He screamed, fists clenched and his anger flaring at the other's satisfaction from his panic.

"Whose fault is it that you're inside my soul!"

The question echoed and was accompanied by another breaking sound his anger caused. Their reflections became harder and harder to tell apart.

"Whose, really…" The hollow asked absently and looked up, hands in his pockets. The Shinigami's eyes widened – so were his.

"Like I said, it's not my fault… or is it?" He tilted his head to the side and suppressed a smirk as the mirror around him began disintegrating into a sort of glittering fairy dust.

"And I'm asking whose it is!" He screamed back, enraged at the other's confidence and cockiness… which was exactly the other's intention.

"Now now, don't be losing your temper, we're having a civilized conversation over here… or at least trying to, anyway." His cynical tone and smile were what threw him over the edge… and back into a remote sort of composure as he too went to counter with words.

"Yarre, yarre… what would people say if they knew I was having such in-depth discussions with my self?"

"Let them be, they're just jealous because they're lonely."

"Maybe I'd like to be lonely too." He said quietly and looked intently at the mirror in front of him. The smile sent his way – sweet, innocent and endearing – made him feel like a hole had been ripped through his chest.

"That…can be arranged." The hollow said as the innocence vanished and a predatory glint came to his eyes. And all of a sudden he could see it – not in the mirrors, mind you – or what was left of them – but before his very eyes, even when he closed them tightly.

The scenes… the horrors…

Loved ones, close ones…

Strangers he saw no more than once even…

He didn't like what he was seeing.

"Stop it…" He pleaded silently, his fingers twitching as though for his sword yet his arms refused to move.

He could feel it, too… a sort of sticky moisture in the air… of sweat and tears and blood…

Oh God, the blood…

"Stop it…" He hissed through clenched teeth, his fingers now digging into his palms. Black eyes trailed to his hands exactingly, and a rather victorious tone came to smile-decorated black lips as the first drop of blood fell, and in seconds – as though attracted to it – the shards that came off of his own mirror – began gathering around the other…

And the smell…

Dear God, the smell!

"S – stop it!" He hardly managed to hold back as the gagging effect was almost too much.

It wasn't even the sensational stimulation – it was the sight of his sword painted in red in the middle of it all.

All alone, in the middle of corpses of the people who knew his name and called him by it.

"You hate it, don't you?" His voice came at him as though from miles away and managed to bring him back to his reality – a reality at which he tried glaring past the shock and nausea.

"You hate what you saw there, don't you? All those people you care for, brought down to that… do you know who did it?"

He refused to answer.

"Do you?"

He didn't want to answer.

"I'll tell you, then."

He didn't want to know… but his opinion was given no meaning – as the lower part of his body was covered by mirror shards. He paid that no attention – he hadn't even felt it – as he saw quite clearly who stood there, next to his blood covered sword, there, covered in blood himself from head to toe. There he was…

Himself!

No… not him… anyone but him…

But…

It was him…

Just…

Different…

Like the reflection in a slightly side-turned mirror…

Or was the mirror just…

Broken?

His eyes snapped open at the sound of a sharp footstep coming down on already broken glass.

He turned his foot, as though to squeeze it more. The other's eyes, however, refused to leave his own as they were set in quite a determined, deep, burning glare, which was answered with a giggle.

"You hate it…" He casually waved his hand – as he took a step forward.

"You hate that…" another wave – another step.

"You hate –him-" he offered sarcastically – while pointing at the other.

"And you hate – " He came to a stop about halfway between their original positions and pointed – at himself.

"Me."

The glare still fixated on him proved as an answer and all he could do about it – which wasn't much for him but almost too much for the other – was laugh.

A laughter which echoed all through the empty space.

He laughed, and he laughed, and he laughed. And the more he laughed, the more the other glared and clenched his teeth and hissed, and the more the other glared and panicked, the more he laughed, and the more the visions came and went, and the deeper the hate in the other's chest grew. And the more it all happened –

Less mirror shards were floating around, and more – formed around him.

One crack, though, seemed to have been there from the start. One round, broken-almost…

Missing?

Or just… gone?

And the other took another step and suddenly he realized that he couldn't – couldn't more neither his arms nor his legs and then he felt it – the pain that was the missing piece of his chest.

"It hurts, doesn't it? Hating me so much…" He began gently, almost cooingly. "But you can't very much help it, can you? Can't help but hate me… can't help but hate yourself! Pathetic… really… are you even sure that's what you should be hating?"

They locked eyes, curious, confused, lost brown and all-knowing, calm, hungry black and yellow ones.

"Like I said, I know what I am… but can you say the same? About either of us?" He snorted. "That's why you really came here today, isn't it? To find out about that?"

"Shut up!" His lips uttered, yet his voice only echoed inside the mirror that now encapsulated him, deepening the cracks around his chest.

"Hate me… is all you really know, isn't it? Are you jealous, maybe?"

"Like hell!" He craved spitting back, yet found he couldn't even move his lips anymore.

"In that case, let me help you!"

And he felt himself go numb, frozen.

"You want to know, right? What's inside of you…"

Step.

"What was once there and now is gone…"

Step.

"And what's left in there now."

Double step before he came to a stop.

"But then again… you seem pretty… empty… to me…" He laughed as he looked right through the hole in the other's chest.

"But we keep on living, we keep on existing. We continue, in some way, remains 'us'… or should I say – 'you'. Heh, heh… so… why don't we find out?" He asked, now face to face with the other who could only stare back.

"What's left…"

He reached a hand…

"Where once was your heart, hm?"

And the instant his fingers reached the hole, the mirror shattered into billions of pieces and came down on the floor in a deafening noise of clatter.

"Che." The hollow allowed himself as he knelt down, looking at the heap of silvery shards.

"In the end…" He reached a hand, taking a handful of pieces. "… he didn't have that much in him after all."

And with that he tightened his fist, smiling madly as the pieces broke and dug into his white skin. He spread his fingers and watched it all get blown with one swift 'fuu' and went to lick his wounds, savoring the taste of his own blood and the other's emptiness which – at the very least – rivaled his own.

–

A shattering sound greeted Rukia as she walked into the other's room. Her eyes widened as she noticed the one she had made into a Shinigami stand next to the small table, his right fist punched into his left palm – and the white remains of what seemed to have been a mask crushed between his bleeding fingers.

"Ichigo!" She proclaimed and went to him, but he only threw the now broken pieces on the table and turned to leave.

The minute he walked out the door she jumped at another cracking sound, and turning around came to face a broken mirror whose broken pieces reflected the leaving figure – in all the wrong colors.

Disturbed beyond words she bent over and picked up a white piece with crimson stripes and a few drops of equally red liquid – and had to wonder why even his blood suddenly felt so very cold and dead.


End file.
